Monthly Archives: June 2011

With so many Apple Store’s popping up around the world for its best seller unlocked iphone 4, it is no surprise that one of the employees is looking to create a union. The worker, named Cory Moll has been looking to create a union for himself and for other Apple workers at the store. He has stated that a union would allow for workers to receive increased wages, more and better benefits for the work that they put in and would also for them to better deal with the “unfair practices” that he claims that Apple is responsible for. This is something that a lot of employees have shared their sentiments on in recent years.

He claims that he makes $14 per hour, but works much harder than his wage suggests. Moll has stated that he knows that his idea is a bit of a wild dream at the moment because there is not all that much support for it. He said that he did not believe that there was “50 percent or more support for it in any one store” but did go on to say that if the conversation were an open one, he believed that there would be a few stores that would be able to garner 50% of more favorship.

Moll would also need to be able to get a majority of the workers on board with the idea in order to create a union. It would certainly help them to fight for their rights, especially with Apple being as large of a company as it is today. You can bet that Apple was not happy to hear that there was someone who was going through with the idea and looking for support at a number of different stores, although they have not publicly commented on the issue, likely so they do not draw additional attention to it.

Since the Unlocked Samsung (Droid Charge) was released users have had to deal with a bug that really interfered with one of the main reasons that many purchased the phone in the first place. The hotspot feature was only working when you set the date on your device to sometime in May. This forced Verizon to shut off the hotspot for the time being until they could fix the bug.

Now, they have released an update that will continue to allow for the device to utilize the hotspot feature once again, and this time you will not have to change the date on your phone. There are a number of enhancements and additions that came along with the update. Some of the more popular updates including a much longer battery life during phone calls, a browser that works without the issues that were reported before, a new email folder setup that should make email browsing much easier, along with improved GPS performance that should make navigating more simple.

There were many other small updates that were also included in the download which should keep users anticipating future updates as well. The update is currently being slowly rolled out to a number of different devices and you should keep an eye out for the notification that will be present on your phone before the update goes live. It is good to see that Samsung quickly addressed the issue, as the hotspot feature was one that brought in a lot of new users to the Droid charge and it was a shame to see that it did not work out of the box. Of course, the bug that was causing the issue was not one that the company was able to notice until it was no longer May, so you can not really blame them for not figuring it out until it rolled around.

All Sprint users are going to be happy to hear that the company will be giving them a bump in their speeds for their network. The upload speeds specifically are going to be bumped for users of the WiMax network by up to 50%, which should allow for cell phone users such as Motorola Atrix unlocked, HTC Incredible S, etc..to transfer more data in a timely fashion. However, as you might have been able to guess, there is a catch that you have to deal with if you are looking to upgrade the speeds.

The upload speeds, as of right now, have been capped at a mere 1 Megabyte per second. This means that even with the new speeds in place, you will only be able to upload at just 1.5 megabits per second. This is not all that great because Verizon is currently offering users as much as 5 to 7 megabytes per second through their 4G LTE Network, which is by far some of the fastest that the mobile industry has to offer. Although the improvement is a free one and is going to bring users something that they have never had before, you can not help but wish that they would allow for the bump to go just a little bit higher.

Sprint’s network has always been touted as one of the best but is still a few steps behind what has been offered by Verizon and other companies in recent years. Customers will notice that their speeds will increase by as much as 50% over the course of ht next few weeks, but in all the upload speed change should be hardly noticeable unless you are uploading audio and video files, and even then you will only be able to notice a bit of a difference.

It is good to see that they are making changes to keep up with the rest of the industry but you would hope that they would be able to provide users with a little more than they have with this upgrade. Their WiMax has been highly touted, but it is clear that they have a ways to go before keeping up with the leaders in the space.

PureMobile carries wide range of cell phone and cell phone accessories such as cases and skins.

When Microsoft announced that they were going to end the production and designing of The Courier, their upcoming tablet, fans were mad because the tablet actually looked quite promising with its dual displays that was held like a book. However, the company is still reportedly working on putting out a tablet that will be released sometime in 2012. The company will be working with Texas Instruments and other companies to release a tablet that should be released at least by the end of 2012.

So far, the Xbox console has been the best investment of devices other than Pc’s for the company, and they have not had much luck beyond that throughout the course of the last few years. Their Zune player, while functional, it never really reached the heights that the team was really hoping that it would. A new tablet would be right up their ally. Of course, they have not stated whether or not the new tablet will be the book-style dual display tablet as the Courier was supposed to be. They haven’t even gone as far as to confirm the rumors, but the sources that stated it are very reliable with the company rumors.

Hopefully this tablet will be better than the previous devices that the company has released for Microsoft’s sake. They have been able to release a solid operating system for mobile devices such as unlocked Dell Streak, HTC HD7, etc.. and now it looks like they are looking to get into the mobile business their self. Since we are in the early days of the tablet market it is wide open and a large company like Microsoft will have no problem competing if they are able to put together a great option and market as an alternative to the iPad which already seems to have the market sewn up at this time.

After a bit of poking and prodding from the government, it appears that Apple has finally agreed to get rid of apps that allow iphone 4 unlocked users to add the points in which there are DUI checkpoints in an effort to avoid the police while driving drunk. There were numerous of these apps that had been added to their app marketplace and had become quite popular with many other users. Research In Motion also came under fire after allowing some of the same apps into their marketplace. Research In Motion quickly removed the apps, but Apple appeared a bit reluctant to do so.

Apple claimed that since the apps were not in violation of any of their App Store guidelines that the company could not remove any of the apps at that time. However, it appears that they have received enough of a backlash as a result of their decision to have the apps removed.

The request came from the current Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. As a result of the request the company has changed their guidelines and added a section that specifically gets rid of the ban on DUI checkpoint apps. These apps will still likely be available to users that have a jailbroken phone.

Specifically, the new guidelines state that apps that have DUI checkpoints that are not actually published by the law agencies that enforce them will not be allowed in their App Marketplace. This is a move that has likely been expected since the government first started calling for the removal of these apps. It is a little puzzling as to why Apple took so long to address the issue, but they did eventually give in to the plees.

Up until this point, app rentals had not been brought to the mainstream, but t-Mobile and the gaming company Wild Tangent have teamed up to do just that. App shopping is definitely something that frustrates many because you never have the option to try the apps out before you purchase them. This can lead to a lot of apps that have been purchased without truly knowing what you are getting into. Now, T-Mobile and Wild Tangent are teaming up to do away with that.

They will be offering 25 cent rentals on apps that will allow users to have access to them for a short period of time to decide whether or not they are worth their purchase. This is much better than the screen shots and description that the developers offer up to would be customers. Instead of forcing companies to release a free version of the app it appears that Wild Tangent is trying to offer next to free styled rentals of these apps to get a better idea of what will be available.

Amazon’s app store recently tried to do something similar. Their test drive feature allows users to get a quick look at the app before purchasing it but does not work with every app and the features are pretty limited for the most part. Android currently allows users to return the app within 15 minutes of the purchase, and Apple’s unlocked iphone 4 allows for users to try apps out before purchasing, but no company has been able to successfully solve the problem in whole, which is what Wild Tangent looks to be doing with their games app on T-Mobile that will be available through the Android marketplace. This is a good idea but it would be much better if they were timed free rentals of these apps instead of 25 cents, which will keep many people from even trying it out.

One of the biggest gripes that many users have with the iPhone 4 unlocked and other iOS devices is that they are forced to constantly tether their device to their PC to make changes to various settings, and make updates. Now, it looks as though Apple is finally bringing out a software improvement that will allow for them to give users more access to their features and settings without having to first connect their device to a PC. This goes a long with some of the other changes that the company have made to separate themselves and their devices farther from PC’s.

You can now activate your phone as soon as you get it out of the box without having to first sync it to a computer. The company also allowed for updates to be sent to these devices over the air, which should allow users to update their software without first having to connect their device to a computer. This is good news for those of us that hate having to go tether the device to a computer every time that they are looking to update the software.

Also, this should allow for users to sync their iTunes libraries through Wi-Fi and also means that they will not have to first connect their device to place new songs on their device. This is big news and should tie in nicely with the iCloud streaming music in the cloud system that they are releasing soon The company has made it clear that they would like for everything to be done wirelessly and have put a lot of time into making the iOS devices as independent as possible. Their PC Free update and post-PC stance on the industry will continue to be reflected as they continue to release updates and new devices that have a large number of features available to

ComScore has announced something that most people that follow the mobile industry will already be aware of - the fact that Android has continued to grow at a quick rate and has been able to surpass some of their competition over the course of the last few months. In January of 2011, the Android operating system had just over 31% of the total subscriber base. Now, it has been announced that they have 36.4% of the total number of subscribers, leading to a 5.2 percent increase over that period of time. They are rapidly capturing market share with excellent device releases and updates that have attracted a lot of new users.

Over that same period of time, Apple’s unlocked iphone 4 has also gained some of the smart phone subscriber base, moving forward 1.3 percent from January to April to a total of 26.0%. By that same token, the biggest loser over this period of time was undoubtedly Research in Motion. They saw their overall share of the Smartphone subscriber base fall an astounding 3.7 percent between January and April, falling to 25.7 percent and officially falling below apple for the first time in the history of the industry in this score.

Microsoft has actually seen the percentage of smart phone subscribers dip over this period as well, but many of these users are users of the previous Windows operating system for smart devices such as HTC HD 7, Dell Streak unlocked etc..which is being phased out so they are expected to lower over the course of the next few months while the user base of their main focus, Windows Phone 7 continues to grow. In all, good news for Apple and Google, and depressing news for Research In Motion and other companies that have seen their numbers fall in the first half of 2011.

Research In Motion continues to update their systems and offer new features to users that have been relatively feature starved until recently when they have started to rapidly expand the overall number of features that they are able to offer. Now, the company has released a new app that is already available for download in their app marketplace that is able to integrate with your calendar that is already present in your BlackBerry devices such as Bold 9780, Torch 9800 unlocked, etc. They will allow you to easily schedule and also join an already present conference call. You can see how this would be useful to users - especially their hordes of users that use their device for business purposes.

The app will likely find a good following with business users that have already been driven to the BlackBerry platform for their business needs. It will certainly be interesting to see how quickly the app rises to prominence among users. The app is great at easily scheduling and creating conference calls. They will allow provide you with a reminder notification that will pop up when you reach a scheduled conference time that you have previously scheduled.

Also, if you lose your connection to the audio conference, you will be able to rejoin with the single click of a button, which is a huge feature of the app. It will be interesting to see how quickly business users gravitate toward the scheduling features that have been provided in the app, but you can bet that some users will gravitate toward it if nothing else than for the great scheduling features and notifications that have been made available to users when they are scheduling their conference calls. This app effectively allows you to set and show up for meetings, reminding you of when you need to be in your conference call.

Michael Jackson might have passed away, but that does not mean that his name and image are not as popular as they have ever been. Michael Jackson has been really huge in Japan in recent years with a number of very highly touted products being released that feature his image. There is a new social game that has been released on a number of Japanese mobile social gaming platforms including the popular Mobage titled “Michael’s King of Pop.

The new game will allow for users to take Michael Jackson from nothing to the number one entertainer on the planet, just as he did throughout his early career. The game has already become quite popular and you can bet that it will only continue to become more popular as it is being covered on a number of other media outlets as well.

The players int he game are allowed to take control of his career. They will also be able to upgrade their character by attending dance lessons as the deceased pop star, organize concerts for their fans to watch and also complete missions while building up his skills and furthering his popularity.

Users will be able to fight it out on the dance floor with other players of the game which was Michael Jackson’s way of defeating his critics as well. Users can learn more than 80 different dance skills including he infamous moonwalk which became his most interesting and well known dance move in his repertoire throughout his career.

The game is an interesting one and just goes to show how popular he is an an entertainer even well after his career has come to an end. Watch as you take control of his career and build him from the ground up into the greatest entertainer of all time.